The present invention relates to a management system of semiconductor exposure apparatuses exposing a circuit pattern on a wafer, and a semiconductor exposure apparatus management method which assures flexibility in selecting a semiconductor exposure apparatus while taking into consideration an alignment error of a product caused by a distortion of a semiconductor exposure apparatus.
Conventionally, reduction of alignment errors caused by lens distortions of semiconductor exposure apparatuses has been attempted by engineers in a semiconductor manufacturing line, who control measurement results of a lens distortion of each semiconductor exposure apparatus, select exposure apparatuses having a close distortion trend, and designate the exposure apparatuses for each product or process.
When semiconductor exposure apparatuses are operated in the foregoing manner, there may be a case of inefficient operation, e.g., concentration of a processing lot to a particular apparatus. Furthermore, there is a problem of the increased number of management processes performed by engineers in a manufacturing line, considering the matching of distortions, including a distortion difference for each exposure illumination mode and a permissible error for each process.
The present invention has been proposed in view of the conventional problems, and has as its object to provide a management system and method of semiconductor exposure apparatuses, which can efficiently reduce an alignment error caused by distortions without increasing the number of processes and perform reliable exposure, by managing the system to select a combination of semiconductor exposure apparatuses which automatically perform the most appropriate exposure in accordance with each distortion caused by various conditions of semiconductor exposure apparatuses.
According to the present invention, the foregoing object is attained by providing a semiconductor exposure apparatus management system for controlling each of a plurality of semiconductor exposure apparatuses for each exposure process when the plurality of semiconductor exposure apparatuses are used to execute a plurality of expos re processes and manufacture a semiconductor device, the system comprising:
management means for managing distortion data corresponding to an exposure condition of each exposure process for each of the semiconductor exposure apparatuse
designation means for designating an arbitrary exposure process in the plurality of exposure processes;
search means for searching the plurality of exposure processes for an exposure process whose alignment target is the exposure process designated by said designation means;
first data acquisition means for acquiring first distortion data for each of the semiconductor exposure apparatuses, the first distortion data corresponding to an exposure condition of the exposure process designated by said designation means;
second data acquisition means for acquiring second distortion data for each of the semiconductor exposure apparatuses, the second distortion data corresponding to an exposure condition of the exposure process searched by said search means; and
calculation means for calculating a distortion-factor alignment error for each combination of a semiconductor exposure apparatus which causes to execute the exposure process designated by said designation means and a semiconductor exposure apparatus which causes to execute the exposure process searched by said search means, based on the first distortion data and the second distortion data.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters designate the same or similar parts throughout the figures thereof.